


Not in Lone Splendour

by fromthelipsofcassandra (templefugate)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Elvish Translations, Eating out, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Hair Kink, Lust, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Nudity, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Police, Tauriel/All of Middle Earth, Valentine's Day, more pairings coming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2020-10-12 03:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20557715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templefugate/pseuds/fromthelipsofcassandra
Summary: In which everyone in Middle Earth wants to get it on with Tauriel.Chapter 1, Chapter 2: Tauriel/ThranduilChapter 3: Tauriel/Legolas





	1. Volition - Tauriel/Thranduil

**Author's Note:**

> In which Thranduil drunkenly suggests Tauriel come to his chambers and she holds him to his word.
> 
> Man, I've been meaning to write this thing for years. YEARS! Ever since The Desolation of Smaug came out and I got a metaphorical hard on for Peter Jackson's ginger elf warrior OC. Ever the multi-shipper, my brain thought up countless plot bunnies wherein Tauriel might get with other characters. Dwarf, elf, hobbit, or man, male or female. The possibilities were endless. But I was too bad at writing smut to consider writing this until now. Will I come to regret this? Probably. Will that stop me from writing more of these bad boys? No.
> 
> While this chapter features Tauriel/Thranduil (and hints of Legolas/Tauriel), future chapters will include Tauriel/Kili, Tauriel/Legolas, Tauriel/Fili, a Fili/Tauriel/Kili sandwich, and even Tauriel/Dori. Something tells me my mind will only continue to cook up even more ridiculous ships. I'm already trying to think up AU's wherein something like Tauriel/Smaug might work. Other pairings I'm hoping to include, but currently have no ideas for, are Tauriel/Sigrid, Tauriel/Eowyn, Tauriel/Arwen, Tauriel/Bilbo and Tauriel/Nori. Also, not all fics will be smutty. I can only embarrass myself so much.

She sits across the front of his bed, legs parted and breasts half-hidden behind her hair. Thranduil's eyes widen, his lips parting but making no sound. He stops at the edge of his doorway, his hand against the wooden frame.

Tauriel looks up to him, her eyes hard. "I thought you would never arrive." She pushes herself off of the bed, stepping over her neatly folded clothes resting upon the floor.

"Tauriel," he says, eyes narrowing. He turns away, focusing on the antlers mounted to his wall and the bottles decorating his dresser. His lips water at the sight of the aged brown glass. If fortune still favors him, then one of them is not empty.

"I do not want to consider how long you kept me waiting." She's in front of him now, close enough that if he steps even the slightest bit forward the two will meet.

The sight of her makes his knees shake and his bulge rise. At once he is soft as clay and hard as dried brick.

"Tauriel?" he repeats. "What are you doing here?"

Her only response is a smirk and shake of her head.

With a shaking hand, he reaches forward and runs his fingers through her hair. Goosebumps rise along his arm.

"My king, have you already forgotten?"

His eyes meet hers. Thranduil's heart beats hard against his ribs in a rhythm only he can hear. "I have not." His mouth is suddenly dry. Stepping away, he reaches towards the closest bottle.

"Put that down."

His fingers have not even fully gripped it. He pulls his hand away as though the glass might burn him. "I had this when I first called you to my chambers. Why not have more?"

"If we are to do this, then you are to remember all of it."

He looks back to her, his shoulders straightening. A retort dances across his lips but never leaves them. There is a power in her that burns, demanding respect and attention. She could step forward now and pull the crown from his head, declare his power her own, and he could only mutely nod in reply.

"I know what I said, Tauriel." He swallows. "I never expected you to follow my orders."

She smirks. "Who am I to disobey my king?"

A chuckle dies in his tight throat. So long has he dreamed of this moment. He steps back, taking in the pale line of her belly and the soft hair that outlines her core. Small moles decorate her left hip, like dark stars dotting a white sky. Her breasts are limp, nipples puckered and pink skin dotted.

He swallows again. Legolas' face flashes before his mind. His son heard what he said, saw his friend leave the dining chamber. If he truly goes through with this, what will his son think?

He pushes the thought away, forcing out the future so that he might focus on the present. He breathes in, exhales. Blinks and then open his eyes. She is still there, her skin glowing in the candlelight, her eyes set on him.

"Will you spend the whole night staring at me?" She reaches forward then and pulls at his robe with steady, thin fingers. He counts the veins running along her hands.

Gently, he reaches forward and takes her wrists. "Stop."

She pouts. "If we are to do this-"

"Stop!" He walks past her to his bed, picking her clothes up from the floor. "Get dressed and back to your post."

_"Tarnya,"_ she says, and the word coats his skin with ice. He turns back to her, holding out her cloak.__

_ _"Tauriel," he repeats, closing his eyes. Again, when he opens them, her figure greets him. He closes them again, squeezing his lids shut so tightly that the pressure pushes back against his forehead. "You do not know what you are doing."_ _

_ _"You called upon me. How long have you wanted this?"_ _

_ _"It was foolish of me to suggest-"_ _

_ _"How long?"_ _

_ _He opens his eyes again. "Since you first came to me, seeking to fill your once vacant position." He steps forward a few feet, pushing her tunic into her hands._ _

_ _"Is that why you warned off Legolas?"_ _

_ _"Perhaps." His voice is low. He reaches forward and cups her chin in his hands, rubs his scarred thumb along her cheek._ _

_ _"Perhaps?" She raises an eyebrow._ _

_ _"Have _you_ ever thought of this?"_ _

_ _Her gaze pulls away from him though her body does not._ _

_ _"Get dressed and go," he says. He waves his hand towards the door. "Go to your post, your chambers, wherever your feet lead you."_ _

_ _"Thranduil." She looks back up to him. "Will you call upon me again?"_ _

_ _He shakes his head. "My order was a mistake. I can only hope it does not cloud your view of me." He pauses before speaking again. "Say nothing of this to Legolas, to anyone."_ _

_ _She nods. Slowly, she begins to dress. His eyes switch constantly between looking at the floor and her slender figure. She gives him one last look once she has finished pulling on her boots before heading out the door. It slams shut behind her, the sound echoing along the vine-covered walls._ _

_ _His heart still hammering, he slips off his boots and collapses onto his bed. His sheets still reek of her. Long tendrils of orange hair decorate his pillow. He holds one up to the light._ _

_ _His temples are pounding now. Thranduil hugs his knees to his chest, feels salt burn against his eyes. The rumors may fade as the centuries pass, the wary look, which he can already clearly imagine, might one day leave his son's eyes. But she will not forget, even if this night somehow slips from his own mind._ _

_ _He is her king and yet her word is enough to put him down on his knees._ _

_ _He pulls a blanket over himself, clutching the fabric tightly between his balled fists. Images of her lithe frame fill his mind. If he called her back now, her tunic would be on the floor in the blink of an eye. Such is the nature of duty._ _

_ _He shakes the thought away. Another overshadows it, squeezing at his heart._ _

_ _Would she ever come without his own prompting?_ _

_ _Perhaps, he realizes. Time is a strange beast when one has an infinitude of it. Eons might pass until he one day opens his door and sees her sitting before him again, her heart finally open to him. Or he might face a single constant in his endless existence, an unchanging variable that begs questions but never answers them._ _

_ _The answers certainly elude him now. The future stands miles out of his reach. For now he only has the cold present, a recent memory clinging to him like an outgrown skin he must shed._ _


	2. Regulation - Tauriel/Thranduil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a line between imagination and reality that they will soon cross, rules be damned.

Her trousers and boots lay in a pile on the floor, her sheets bunched up at the end of her bed. Other than a dagger on her dresser and assorted papers and quills scattered across the desk by her door, the room was bare. She lived in this cramped room only by necessity. As a child, she had slept countless nights under the stars with nothing but the wind to try and contain her. This room, like the spider webs that dotted the forest and the tree branches that grew so long that they shrouded the sky, was a cage.

Even with the candles set against the wall, the room was thick with shadows. Her guest was half hidden in them. One part of his body was lost in a blanket of grey, the other glimmering in the dim orange light. What little she could see of his face was unreadable. She supposed it was a miracle that her king had come at all.

No, she realized. That couldn't be true, not unless she'd been imagining the way that he looked at her. And though a madness may have been settling into Mirkwood, it had yet to invade Thranduil's halls, let alone her own perception.

Like any good king, he would not refuse a gracious invitation from those he relied upon most.

Tauriel pulled her legs further apart, watching his one visible eye widen. She thrust her hand downward, rubbing her fingers first against the skin of her upper thigh before circling her sex. She pushed her finger forward into the warm, wet flesh.

Thranduil stepped forward. His eyes flickered from her to the floor to her dresser. The dagger had been in need of a polishing for month, but she had never quite gotten around to it. He gazed at it with such an intensity that she half wondered if glowing letters had suddenly sprouted forth on its surface.

Their eyes met again. Tauriel smiled.

The motions were mechanical, practiced. While she was no stranger to doing this, she rarely thought of others while doing it. It was... Stress relief were not quite the right words. It merely served as a background movement while she delved into recollections of her day and more abstract thoughts. Whether in uniform or in the dining halls eating a meal, some part of her was always moving. If she stood now, her not-quite-cell was seven strides along its width and fifteen along its length. Thranduil was pacing now, again not meeting her gaze. His large steps only seemed to make the space smaller. If he were to turn and keep moving forward, he just might pass her.

He stuck by the door. Tauriel continued to rub her fingers in circles. Pulling her hand out, she again met her king's gaze as she licked her index finger.

"You need not be so distant."

He did not reply but did not leave either.

"How many nights have you dreamt of this?"

Again, no response. There was a slight bulge in his glimmering robes, but his hands did not so much as hover over it.

"Tauriel," he finally said, "there are rules." He half-whispered her name as if it was a curse.

Rules, rules, rules. All her life there had been nothing but rules. She'd always pushed them just to the edge of breaking before pulling away, and always been left wondering what would have happened if she had kept going forward. Just what could these laws do for her besides wrap her in chains made of ink and time?

It wasn't that she did not understand. She had met more of Thranduil's council than she would have liked. If not for this, in a few thousand years she might very well have become one of those miserable faces following him and clucking over his every move.

She smirked. Whatever this turned into, it was certainly worth losing a council seat over. She could imagine herself pondering his every choice and offering a stream of contradictory advice alongside a group of other faceless elders, but she could not dwell on it. She would at once be so close to him, practically his shadow, but also be separated from him by even harsher walls than the ones that stood now, these ones of her own making.

"Is it because of my..." She paused. "My heritage?"

Because no matter her title, no matter how many orcs she felled and spiders she crushed, she would always be a lowly Silvan elf. Nothing could change her blood.

"These are rules for myself. Surely you know there are even actions I cannot take."

She raised her eyebrows but said nothing. If needed, he could execute a man by his own sword after only a moment's judgement. Compared to that, what was this?

He next looked to her when she pulled the object from beneath her pillow. The wood had lost its gleam over the years, though she regularly cleaned it. It was shaped only vaguely like what he himself had but served much the same purpose. Unlike her king, it was blessed without a mouth. As if taking a cue from it, he swallowed whatever excuses had been hanging on the tip of his tongue and watched as she inserted it.

Though it had come from a passing trader, it felt as though it had been made specifically for her. It fit just well enough to not be snug. She turned the tip between her fingers, letting it run in slow circles inside of her. Tauriel held back a moan and Thranduil's lips remained sealed. His eyes said enough.

She pulled it out, looked it over, and then slipped it back inside again. In, out, in, out.

"How long have you thought of this?"

"I never imagined seeing you quite in this way." It was all that he said for the rest of the evening, but his words did not evaporate into the air. Instead, they blanketed the room, bound them together. By the time she entered her bathing chambers, gesturing him towards the door he'd been hovering near the entire night, her smirk was back. He'd said nothing when she offered her second invitation.

The answer had already been written in his eyes.

___

By the third night, almost two years after his first visit, her tunic was on the floor as well. Though they had spent many nights apart, more from the necessities of their lives than any choice upon their (or rather, she supposed, her) parts, Tauriel continued as she had before. One set of fingers circled her sex, the other cupped her breast. Thranduil's own outer robe had been abandoned on the floor, and his thin cotton trousers did little to hide his feelings. This time, he touched himself openly, though he never met her gaze when doing so.

Rules, she had learned, became easier to break if you ignored more of them. Tonight he would keep the few feet between himself and her bed, but even that wouldn't hold up for much longer.

"What do you see when you think of me?"

"I see Orc blood dripping from your hair and your arm raised, a dagger wrapped in your fist."

And that was the truth, she knew. Just not all of it.

___

The next night, her tunic and trousers were on and her king's chest was bare. Faded scars and burns crisscrossed across the flesh like stones along a dirt path. With his almost ever present robes, they needed no glamour. Without them...

Well, there was all the more for her to see.

She did not touch them. Though it was unwritten, that was one rule even she would make herself follow.

He ran a hand through her hair almost reverently, his eyes always directed above her collar bone. Though it was the color of fire, it did not burn. Many elves had long been fascinated by it but few had ever touched it.

Yet even that lost its luster. He was not even there one third of an hour before dressing again. Rather than go straight to the door afterwards, however, he turned back and placed a quick kiss upon her head.

___

He still had yet to answer her question, but something told Tauriel that this excited him more than anything his imagination could conjure. His back was to her bed frame, his elbows buried in her pillows. With his legs opened wide, her own were held under him. She was above him, looking down into his face and holding his gaze. It had hurt only momentarily when he had pushed inside of her at the beginning of the night. His hand was on her shoulder, helping to hold her up. Her own hands were decorating the skin of his chest with half-moon marks.

He pulled out before releasing himself, staining her bedsheets. This, she supposed, meant he had not technically broken a rule.

Rather then move back inside of her, he leaned forward, kissing her stomach. He rose slowly upwards, following along the goosebumps that now freckled her skin. Though his lips wandered over her breast, he never touched her nipples. They were so hard and enlarged that she half wondered if he was ignoring them. His lips continued further upward, rising along her neck. The higher he went, the faster he became.

As soon as he pulled his lips away from her chin, he turned her over until she was against the bed. Thranduil's fingers went to her nipples, squeezing. Her moans were met with a laugh. Again, his lips descended upon her breasts, until his face seemed buried in them. A hand ran up her back, pushing the two as close together as they could be. Her chin rested against his head, stray golden hairs tickling her cheeks.

After circling her breasts with his lips twice, he began a downward journey with his mouth that ended with his tongue between her. There was such a grace to it that Tauriel knew her king was no stranger to the act. Some might have been bothered by it, but it only brought a smile to her lips. Whoever had come before her were not here now. This moment was hers and always would be.

He did not move his tongue in circles. Instead, he reached in, moving his tongue just so. When it hit the right spot, a place that once only her fingers had known, he pulled it out, leaving her trembling. As soon as she stilled, he would go back in again. In, out, in, out.

Her legs were wrapped around his back now. They trembled as he slipped his fingers inside of her, running them in circles along the flesh. With his free hand, he cupped her chin and looked into her eyes. She could not bring herself to speak. If she opened her mouth, would words come out?

"Tauriel." He spoke her name slowly, his voice just barely above a whisper. "Tauriel."

Then his tongue was back inside of her and he couldn't speak even if he wanted to.

Later, when they were apart, their legs only touching because her bed was so small, he pulled the object from beneath her pillow and held it up to the light.

"I always imagined you kept a dagger under here instead."

"Check beneath the other pillow."

His hand was on her arm, rubbing side to side into her skin with his thumb. He moved closer, just enough that she could feel something hard against her leg.

Were they to go another round? Thranduil really did like war when it suited him.

Tauriel braced herself to feel him slip back inside of her, to thrust his hips and cling to her back. To reach the point of releasing himself before pulling away, staining her sheets, and then entering again.

Instead, he placed a hand beneath her back and pulled her up from the bed.

"I trust you have spares to change this with."

She motioned towards the dresser. "Of course."

He was the one to pull the top drawer open, find the spares, and then strip and redress her bed. His motions were quick, smooth, practiced.

"Is this another one of your rules?"

He even changed the pillow cases. "More a matter of courtesy." He pulled the dagger from where it had dropped onto the floor, holding it up. "I do hope you've never had to pull this out from under you."

_"You can never know in this new world we live in._

That was what she should have said. Instead, what she said was "It is just a matter of precaution. I have always done it."

He nodded. Putting it back beneath her pillow, he gestured towards the door to her small bathing chambers. "Shall we?"

The water that fell from aged pipes was only lukewarm. She pushed a cloth between her innards while he ran shampoo through her hair. It seemed as if he might step inside of the circular bath with her and pick back up from earlier. Instead, he helped her out of the tub and gave her a towel.

"I will not be long." Then the door was shut and locked with a small click. She herself rarely used it, preferring to leave the door open. It was not as if anyone ever entered.

At least not before. As she slipped into a night gown, something told her that things were about to become very different.

Oh, there was still a wall between them. At least Thranduil now saw a reason to climb over it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will branch out and be Tauriel with someone else besides Thranduil. I'll have to think up who first, though.


	3. Manufactured Love - Tauriel/Legolas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in a modern AU. I try to stick to the Middle Earth setting, but this one just wouldn't work there.

"How the hell did you manage to get your paws on this?"

Legolas grinned, tossing the cork from his one hand to the other. "I refuse to incriminate myself."

"Your dad will kill you."

"That's what I've got you for."

Tauriel turned back towards her cabinet, eyeing various glassware but not quite seeing them. 

It had been less than an hour since her phone had vibrated, her screen flashing with a simple "U BUSY?" Though she'd sent back a quick no, she hadn't actually expected him to drop by.

No one had been to her apartment in (just which was it?) five or six months. Other than her uncle coming over for dinner back in July, no one else had stopped by. Not that she'd had much time to the place herself. It had been almost a month since she'd had time to even turn the television on, let alone do anything beyond dig around in her refrigerator or collapse into bed.

She supposed it could have looked worse. Her kitchen table had a few old newspapers on it, but nothing that kept them from plopping plates down on it earlier that evening. Fast food bags weren't scattered across the floor the way they were in her car, and the place had only needed a quick dusting before Legolas arrived.

"Not that he'd ever notice." Legolas chuckled. "He's got so many of these down in the basement. Hell, I probably could have grabbed more."

Tauriel grabbed two mid-size glasses and placed them on the counter with a light thump.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," she replied, holding out her glass.

Once Legolas had filled his own cup, the two clinked their glasses together. She waited a moment before tasting it, watching Legolas tilt his head back and take a long gulp. Her hands shook as she brought the cup to her lips, but it didn't spill.

"I was a bit surprised that you were off tonight."

"Go complain to the head of the precinct about them always needing me at nights." She looked down into her glass as she spoke.

In that moment, it seemed to her as though infinite questions hung on Legolas' tongue. Everything from a simple "How's work?" to "So are you really going to be made a detective?"

"Well, considering the night," was his only response.

She blinked. "Pardon?"

"I knew I should have grabbed some chocolate before I came over." Pulling his phone from his pocket, he held it out. Tauriel's eyes fixed on his background, which depicted him posing next to a deer he'd hung two years prior. She'd taken the picture herself.

It took her a moment for her eyes to land on the time and date.

"Oh." She shrugged. "You think I had a reason to celebrate?"

"You never know."

She scoffed. "Relationships aren't a concern of mine right now."

"Have they ever been?"

She gave him a quick, light punch to the shoulder. "You aren't exactly on any big dates tonight, either."

Legolas took another long sip of his wine, quickly downing the glass. He quickly poured himself some more.

"Everyone else is out tonight. Sort of takes the fun out of it." He walked back to the table, pulling out a chair. She followed him, her leg brushing against his own as she passed him by.

"Is that why you're here?" She took another sip. This was the real deal all right, nothing like the twelve dollar stuff she sometimes nursed at bars when she didn't feel like beer. "You couldn't get a date tonight?"

He held a hand against the center of his moss green T-shirt, crumpling the fabric between his fingers. "The lady strikes a near fatal blow! Do you ask all your guests that?"

"Oh, certainly. I like it more than talking about the weather." Before she could stop herself, before her brain could kick her, she reached forward and pulled his glass from him. Neither were lightweights by any means, but she wasn't going to wait until a sheen fell over his eyes to say what she asked next. "Why did you really come here?"

He narrowed his gaze at her. "I thought it was obvious, Taur. I wanted to see you."

She took a hard, dry swallow of air. Had her day been different than maybe her stomach wouldn't be flipping like a pancake in her chest. Right then, though, she couldn't push Bard's words back.

He'd spoken that afternoon in a tone of voice that was hair-pulling levels of calm. It sounded rehearsed (and very well could have been). "You're too involved. You're not the first person here to do it, but it's always a problem."

And maybe it always had been one for her. Perhaps that was why she constantly bounced between departments, standing on street corners in a mini skirt for a few months before writing traffic tickets over the next.

It was that same impossibly calm voice that had convinced her to put all that extra, long-saved vacation time, even though she had nowhere to go, to use.

"Put things into perspective," he'd said in a tone that he probably used with his own children, "and when you get back you'll be better than ever."

Maybe when she got back he'd stop spouting off cliches.

She shook her head. Wasn't she supposed to have left all that baggage back at the station?

"Taur?" Legolas asked. Reaching forward, he pulled her chin up with his left hand. "Is everything okay?"

"I just didn't expect you to drop by." It wasn't a lie. The biggest plans she'd had for the night had been to eat an entire pepperoni pizza and see how long she could go without getting off the couch.

"Are you sure you weren't hoping to see someone else?"

"If that were the case, I assure you that you'd know." Just as the words left her lips, Tauriel froze. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

Other than making out sloppily back in college, both too drunk to know quite where to place their lips, they'd never crossed that line. It was an unspoken rule between the two. Feelings, even if you had them, brought problems. The two had enough of them without making more.

Legolas averted his gaze.

"You could have at least brought chocolates!" She gave him a smile that was nothing but teeth. "I mean, I like them more than flowers."

"Can't say I haven't been thinking about the idea." His eyes were locked on his lap. "Haven't you ever wondered what would happen if we got together?"

"Tt! Stealing your dad's wine and now this. Just what has gotten into you?"

He didn't so much as force a smile. "I know it was stupid. I could have saved you some trouble and come to that conclusion earlier." Reaching past her, he grabbed his glass.

She bit her lip. "I'm glad you visited. It's been a while since you stopped by."

"You don't have to lie to me." He got up, grabbing the nearby bottle and drinking straight from it. When he turned back around, there was a purple stain over his chest. "If you need me to leave..."

"Don't even think about it." A red truck, its front crushed like an empty water bottle, smoke pouring from its windshield, flashed through her mind. Just as quickly as the image appeared, it flew from her mind. Better to focus on what was in front of her than delve on what the paramedics weren't able to pull out months prior.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if you're going to drop by then you might as well get cozy." She took the bottle from him and quickly corked it. "There are a lot of places to get drunk and cry in this city, but my apartment isn't one."

Ten minutes later, they were on her couch. Tauriel's head was against Legolas' shoulders. She remembered when his hair went long past his shoulders, back when he didn't spend ninety percent of his time in a suit.

"Anything you want to watch?"

"No. You?"

She clicked down on her remote, stopping at a nature documentary in her to-watch list, the sort that she never actually thought she'd get the time to view. She clicked play.

Legolas was snoring before they were halfway through.

___

He brought chocolates the next time he stopped by. "Hope you don't mind that I nibbled on a few on the way here, but my meetings ran so long this afternoon that I didn't have time to grab lunch."

She took the heart shaped box from him, pulling it open. "I'm glad you left some pecan clusters."

At least they were at her place and not his. She'd been to his penthouse a handful of times, and it always left her feeling... Jealous wasn't the word. She didn't need five-thousand dollar suits in her closet or one of a kind abstract paintings on her walls. But it still made the contrast between them sharper. Growing up, she'd been lucky at times to even have a hole in the wall to come home to.

"You up for pizza again or something else?"

"I'm actually not that hungry anymore."

She lightly rattled the box. "Just how many of these did you eat?"

"I'm sure I'll feel different in an hour. We could go out somewhere."

She popped a chocolate into her mouth. "I'll think about it."

___

If Legolas was wondering how she could see him five nights within two weeks, he had yet to ask. They had just gotten back from a movie - a forgettable kind of comedy that existed only to make her appreciate her greasy, over-buttered tub of popcorn more.

"You can stay the night if you want."

He rubbed the side of his neck. "I'll pass. I'm still aching from my last night on your couch."

Tauriel rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean that." She leaned against her door, letting out a long breath. "I've been thinking about what you said on Valentine's Day."

"Huh?"

"You know."

Maybe what Legolas wanted was too much. Maybe unspoken rules were written in invisible ink for a reason.

She thought back to the jewelry store robbery from a few years back. The hunched over forty-something guy with rapidly thinning hair and beady eyes. The kind that kept stuffing rings into his pockets even as alarms blared overhead because he needed another hit of his precious.

Then she saw the wrecks. The fender benders gone wrong because someone didn't feel like pulling their foot off the pedal. The three-way highway collisions that left entire sections closed.

Then there was the string of people she'd had to interview following any incidents. Most of the names had long since left her, but she couldn't shake away the long stream of hollow-eyed and frightened gazes that now passed through her mind.

Maybe this wasn't the sort of thing that she was supposed to be pondering on her sorry excuse for a vacation. But right then she knew that whatever problems this might bring her, they would never compare to what she'd seen before.

"There doesn't need to be any strings attached. If we end up not liking it, we can stop and never bring it up again."

"Are you sure?"

"We won't know until we try."

___

"I think I finally found a size that fits you."

"Now you're just being cruel."

"You weren't saying that five minutes ago."

"I couldn't really say anything then."

Tauriel slipped her finger back between her legs. Her touch didn't feel quite the same way that Legolas' tongue had, but it sent a shiver up her spine and a smile to her lips anyway.

Legolas pulled open the condom. It fit like a glove in a way that his others hadn't.

"You know," she said, "I'm heading up to Dale Lake in June. You're welcome to come along."

"I didn't know you had time for that."

She shrugged. "I just need a balance." That's what her therapist had been stressing, hadn't she?

And that's what this whole thing between them was, wasn't it? A balance between the bond they'd always had and what could easily slip into something more. So far they'd kept themselves away from the edge, but there was always a chance to go deeper.

Right then, though, she wouldn't have traded what they currently had for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I hope they didn't sound too out of character, but they can't exactly say pretentious and majestic stuff in the 21st century outside of a LARPER's meeting. 
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! While this was pretty light on the smut, I'm currently working on a story where Tauriel gets busy with a number of dwarves.

**Author's Note:**

> _Tarnya_ \- my king, or at least the translation I got of it. Maybe it's wrong. If anyone knows some good Sindarin translators, I'd be glad to hear about them.


End file.
